While everyone at the University may be thinking about the long weekend, the staff charged with organising the annual graduation ceremony are forging ahead with their plans. On 15 April 2025, a week before the beginning of the graduation ceremonies, the organising team, under the leadership of the Acting Registrar, Zolisa Gqamane, met for the last time to talk about what still needed to be done. The team, composed of the Registrar’s office, the Department of Marketing and Communications, Protection Services, Operations, Information Technology and networks, and Infrastructure, took a walk to the Seme Hall, where the event will occur. The team also checked other areas that needed their attention. Gqamane said they met to tie up the loose ends, “to ensure that the event goes off without any glitches from 22 to 24 April 2025”. Gqamane, who oversees the event for the first time as a Registrar, has been involved in it as a Deputy Registrar: Academic Administration and defined the event as “a big occasion, therefore we dare not fail”.
During both segments of the meeting – online and the walkabout, the team ran through the list of things required during the event. The team agreed that security needs to be heightened to ensure seamless events. The team discussed security-related issues like wrist bands, ensuring that only people who have the right to be at the University, particularly in the Seme Hall, and around it, can enter. The team reiterated that only authorised service providers would be allowed in and that the team would ensure that illegal service providers were not allowed entry.
Nearly 3 200 students from the University’s three faculties will graduate. The 2025 graduation ceremonies will take place in the morning and afternoon. The morning and afternoon of the first day will see some departments of the Faculty of Management graduating. The remaining faculty departments will graduate on the afternoon of the second day, 23 April. The Faculty of Applied and Health Sciences will graduate in the morning of the second day. The Faculty of Engineering will graduate in the morning and the afternoon of the last day.